Ukraine before World War II

intergovernmental agreements for 1919 - 1921, Ukrainian lands, which belonged to the two empires, divided between four states: Soviet Russia, Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. This situation lasted for about 20 years to the Munich Agreement in 1938 that ended the Versailles system and led to the reshaping of the new European borders. With the elimination of the Czechoslovak state in March 1939 Transcarpathian land were occupied Hungary and Ukrainian-populated Presov Region (western Transcarpathia), Slovakia inherited a fledgling nation. At a time when totalitarian state is no longer conceal their aggressive intent, there has been convergence of interests of Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union.

eve of the war the Ukrainian people numbered 35.6 million people. Of these 23.7 million lived in the USSR, 4,5 million - in other parts of the USSR. 5.4 million Ukrainian lived in Volhynia and Galicia under Polish, Ukrainian Transcarpathian 520 thousand were under the rule of Hungary, 80 thousand - of Slovakia. Another 700 thousand Ukrainian living in the Americas.

In the present borders of Ukraine 41.5 million Ukrainian population constituted 71,4%. Representatives of other nationalities belonged mainly to the dominant nations: the USSR - it was the Russians in Western Ukraine - Poles, according to Transcarpathia, Bukovina and Bessarabia - Hungarians and Romanians. More than 6% of Ukraine's population was Jewish, most of whom lived on the Right Bank.

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic remained the only form of Ukrainian autonomy. After the genocide and terror 1930 in the republic is still a hint of opposition to the Stalinist regime sentiments. Similarly, the new Communist leadership of USSR, headed by Nikita Khrushchev (old cadre of the republic was almost completely repressed in 1937 - 1938) was an obedient executor of the will of the Moscow Center.